Fancy Dress
by Guinevere81
Summary: I wrote this very angsty story about Lewis and Hathaway going to the department fancy dress party for Halloween. Meant to be for Fright Fest but I could not join so I post here instead.


They'd all received the invite. The office is having a Halloween party. It's meant to boost morale and inspire debate, or so the memo states. 'Fancy dress party, come dressed as whatever scares you the most. We all deal with evil but what is your idea of a true monster?' it had read.

Robbie was sure it was all supposed to be a bit of fun so he hadn't taken it too seriously. All the things that truly scared him seemed to be abstract ideas. His children getting hurt, loosing someone he loved the way he had lost Val. It seemed in many ways he had already lived through his worst nightmare and survived. What was left? For a horrible moment he contemplated being entirely honest and hanging a series of tombstones around his neck with the names of his loved ones. Val and the kids… it would be true of course but he wasn't about to bare his soul like that to the office.

He contemplates and debates with himself, talks it over with Lyn and at the end of the day he rents a costume as the grim reaper. He contemplated dressing as a devil, isn't that the ultimate symbol of evil after all, but all the costumes of the sort seemed geared toward young slim females willing to wear nothing but lingerie. Also he's a little worried about offending his religious sergeant's sensibilities. The lad probably actually believes in the devil and hell and all that palava.

As he's getting dressed he wonders idly what James might come dressed as. Is there such a thing as a spider costume? The lad is a self-confessed arachnophobe after all.

Sally turns up dressed as a clown and at Robbie's questioning look she blushes slightly and confesses 'I was eight the first time I watched Stephen King's "IT", never got over it.' They chuckle together and comment on the various costumes around the room. Robbie muses that karaoke not withstanding this would never have happened in Innocent's day. That this is distinctly Moody's invention is further evidenced when the man arrives and his Freddie Cruger costume draws enthusiastic applause from the whole office.

James is late and his costume draws neither applause nor real comment. Robbie however stares in bewilderment. He realises that a lot of the coppers in the precinct probably think that James has decided to forgo the dress code. He wouldn't be the only one, several of the detectives have turned up in their usual suit with no more effort than a pair of horns or a witches hat.

Robbie knows better, he knows that James never wears tweed, doesn't own the shotgun that is slung over his arm comfortably, and well, if nothing else James' hair is dyed brown. He is dressed up, it's just a question of who he is dressed up to be.

Robbie crosses the floor with a slight frown combined with a smile on his face to join his former sergeant. 'And just who are you supposed to be?' he asks casually.

'The devil.' James answers blankly and this wipes some of the smile off Robbie's face as he tries to piece this together. Really, in James' book the devil wears a tweed suit, a checked shirt and a colourful tie and he has light brown hair, not black or flaming red… what sources did his catholic sergeant consult.

Robbie frowns but doesn't say anything. Instead he holds out a beer and James struggles to free a hand to accept it. The hand not holding the shotgun is clutching sheets of paper. Sheet music on closer inspection.

Robbie blinks. James doesn't usually play by sheet music, and even if he did these notes are treble and base clef both… surely that is wrong for a guitar. Robbie isn't musical. Maybe he got it wrong. He doesn't play a musical instrument himself. He's probably getting it wrong. Yet there is ice in his stomach and he has a vague feeling that he might need to be sick. He'd known the minute he saw the lad surely, he just hadn't wanted to know.

James just smiles and accepts the drink offered to him tucking the sheet music under his arm and taking a gulp of the beer.

'Good turnout. Not very creative costumes but at least there's been a bit of effort made.' James states calmly as he gazes across the crowd. So calm and collected. He doesn't look like a man who has just bared his soul.

When Robbie finally gather's his wits about him James is looking down at him with a slightly concerned frown. 'You alright sir?' James ask hesitantly.

'We need to talk.' Robbie hisses, more harshly than he intended, and suddenly he is afraid to touch James as he guides him out of the main area and toward their office.

James follows, head bent, shuffling his feet slightly.

They stand silently inside the closed door of their office while Robbie gathers his wits about him. He's only had a pint and a half but he feels like he's drunk and hung over at the same time, he can't think.

'Are you dressed as Augustus Mortmaigne?' he asks finally, blurting it out as honestly and simply as he can.

'Yes.' Is James' simple answer and it is just as simple and honest as Robbie's question and conveys just as little of a real answer as Robbie's question really asked what he wanted to know.

'Why?' Robbie tries to stick to simplicity, he doesn't know how to ask what he really wants to know.

'Because he was the most frightening man I knew as a child and as an adult he's been one of the offenders who has upset me the most. He's my boogie man, my view of what evil is.' James answers and it is so like James to be able to answer that question without giving any kind of real answer at all.

'James you know that's not what I'm asking. Did he hurt you?' Robbie blurts out and it is both the wrong question and exactly the right one and Robbie just holds his breath in anticipation, hoping that it will garner an honest answer.

'What does it mean to hurt a child?' James counters… And Robbie wants to scream or possibly strangle him for being so intentionally obtuse, before James goes on…' You want to know if he ever laughed at me when I snuck into Scarlet's private lessons because I loved the texts she got to read, the things she got to learn… you want to know if he told me off the first time he found me playing the grand piano because I was just the grounds keepers eight year old boy… you want to know if he hit me when he found me thumbing through his antique books with eager and far too sticky fingers… you want to know if he changed his mind about me being allowed the piano and books after he saw me skinny dipping with Scarlet in the lake… want to know if he sat too close on the piano stool and put his arm around me as I played… (James gasps for breath and Robbie thinks he might stop)… want to know if his hands moved from my shoulders to my lap… (he's clearly not stopping even if his voice sounds strained) if that made it really hard to play… Do you want to know if I had to give him favours in order to get my music lessons… Are you asking if I could pay him in services in order to get to borrow books and attend lessons… You want to know if he ever touched me, if I ever touched him, if he put it in my mouth, if I let him take me up my arse…. Do you want to know if I turned him onto kids and all that happened after was my fault… do you want to know if I sold my soul to the devil for education and music…'

The room goes quiet, James' chest is heaving and behind his grim reaper mask Robbie can feel tears trickling down his cheeks. He's one second away from starting to sob and he really doesn't want to, not in front of James, not when James is the one hurting.

For a few moments the silence in the room is deafening before James eyes turn watery and he goes on.

'Do I have to say any of that? Do I have to have been buggered by him to think him the worse being that walked the earth? What he did to Paul and to Briony and God knows how many other kids over the years, isn't that enough. If he never touched me. If he never laid a hand on me and I never knew, he is still evil, and I am still partially to blame for not seeing.'

Robbie opens his mouth to protest but James picks up again.

'Don't sir, you may tell me it is not my fault but I lived there. We were closed knit. I knew, I must have known that he was doing this and that it would keep happening until someone stopped him. It doesn't matter if I knew because I could buy the full sheet music version of the Entertainter which would garner me my next grade level with the perfect blow job or a couple of fingers up my arse or because I saw Paul flinch every time an adult touched him… ' James' voice is so clipped and short. ' I don't want your pity, I just want forgiveness.' James turns to leave and Robbie leaps forward, catching him by the wrist and holding him back.

'I forgive you.' He rasps out, he's still crying and it must show in his voice. James hesitates and Robbie forces himself to go on. 'I forgive you for not telling me the truth. I forgive you for being too scared to be honest. I forgive you for neglecting work when life got too much. That at least is mine to give. I can't speak for the rest because I don't understand it but I speak for me. I can't forgive Mortmaigne's sins, he's a monster, but I can forgive yours.'

He's not sure if he's said the right thing, Christ it's probably the opposite of the right thing. Then James makes a small pained noise, takes a step closer and bows his head. Robbie reaches up to gently pull the young man to him. It's not an embrace but James is resting his forehead on Robbie's shoulder and Robbie has one tentative hand wrapped around James' neck and the other around his lower back. James is trembling slightly where their bodies connect and he remains there, head lowered for what seems like a small eternity. Eventually one hand comes up to clutch at Robbie's pathetic synthetic Halloween costume and they stand there in silence as tears continue to trickle down Robbie's obscured cheeks and James' trembling eventually stills.

James voice is disturbingly steady as he takes a step back from Robbie and looks up with cheeks that might be stained with faint tear marks, Robbie can't tell, and states in perfectly calm and collected received pronunciation 'He's my monster sir, no matter what he did. It doesn't matter. We're all scared of something sir. It doesn't matter how perfect or how torturous our lives have been we're all scared of something. He's mine, as I suspect Monkford is yours… I'm sorry.' James flinches as Robbie pulls back slightly, suddenly uncomfortable.

Then with a quick nod James is gone and Robbie sits down heavily in his office chair. What the hell just happened? He can't tell if James just confessed to serious childhood abuse or claimed he had never been harmed at all… he can't tell if James or he himself was the person who just fell apart. He had thought that the crisis he was facing was one to do with James and Mortmaigne and why James' idea of a nightmare was someone so tangibly real but this last exchange has made him reel and wonder.

Has this really been about the fact that when he thought about what his costume should really be, when he created that necklace of tombstones, with Val and Lyn and Mark there had been a fourth stone, one marked James Hathaway. He was almost as scared to lose his sergeant as he was to lose his children these days. Biology held him to Mark, but Mark was half a world away and had made it very clear that he didn't really need his father. A bit of a chat now and again was alright, short update and all that but beyond that he had a new life, one where Robbie didn't fit.

Robbie didn't know for sure what had transpired tonight. He wasn't sure if James had admitted to things or denied things. What he did know was that they had needed each other. Had needed the comfort and connection. It was an odd connection. It wasn't sexual and thought cross-generational it wasn't really paternal. Yet tonight James had needed him and he had needed James.

After all Mortmaigne was in prison for child molestation, regardless of who that child had been and Robbie sincerely hoped that finally James knew that there was an older man, father figure, boss or friend, who admired him for just who he was, not the services he provided.

He really hoped so because the only thing Robbie was certain of was that he would not feel comfortable broaching this subject with James again. He will forever wonder, but he will never ask unless James invites it.


End file.
